Tommy Stinson has something on his mind these days: how to make money on tour while not using the Ticketmaster/Live Nation infrastructure.
The 59-year-old musician—the bassist for defunct Minneapolis alternative rock heroes The Replacements who created his own respectable career out of that band’s shadow—is still traversing North America each year in recent years, something he’s comfortable doing because “I do better traveling than I do sitting at home.”
However, he’s resolved to hit cities and venues that are off the well-traveled path for touring acts. An artist of his stature, he said, can make three times as much doing that than if he went through the mega-promoters and played the larger clubs they control…